Tag Archives: LGBT

We went to gay pride again. I love going there because it gives me the sense of acceptance, tolerance, and even belonging. It is great to be surrounded by people, who embrace difference and for once after so many weeks of feeling uncomfortable in my own skin, I felt wonderful. I dressed up, and dolled up, –and with my lovely open minded wonderful husband– went to Norwich city centre.

Alle möglichen Leute waren da.

The sun was up, but not for long. Soon enough the cloud took over and a bit of drizzle sprinkled the sky with cooling spray. None of those stopped us from being… well… gay 😀 We’re marching from the Forum to Chapelfield garden — this is new because usually we walked from Chapelfield Garden to the Forum.

This is when things got more interesting.

Every year, when we’re parading, there would be someone holding an anti-gay poster on the route. Usually only four or five people gathering while waving us the posters, and in return the paraders would cheered back at them.

Cheered. Not jeered.

It was a “Wooohoooo!!” and lots of clapping, instead of a massive “Booo!!”.

Then I realised… Here in Norwich, we are playing the same game, and obeying the same rule. We believe that everybody could have their opinion without being physically or verbally abused. We know that the authorities would police the regulation, and make sure everybody has that right to voice their thought as long as it is not abusive.

In Indonesia? If voicing a concern about a loud speaker from a mosque ended up in the burning of seven Buddhist temples… Imagine what would happen to a gay man carrying a beautiful rainbow flag in front of FPI rally? Do you think the Indonesian police officers would protect his right to voice his opinion? Do you think FPI would cheered his bravery for coming out? Nope… he would either ended up in the hospital or even… six feet under.

We have had this conversation a long time ago when I was still hanging out with Onyed’s friends. It was almost ten years ago, can you believe that? So when the question was raised again not so long time ago, on one of my acquaintances on their facebook status. Basically these people are questioning the paternal instinct of people who are supporting LGBT in Indonesia.

I couldn’t and wouldn’t screenshot their status, nor link you back to them, because I don’t want them to go viral. I am with “don’t make stupid people popular” thing, so you should — unfortunately, take it from me or leave it 🙂

Basically they’re saying that they believe that human rights shouldn’t cover being gay or lesbian. They believe that it has gone too far. And to be fair, I don’t care of what they are believing in — it is their human rights after all to have faith in something. But then in the end of their argument they’re asking this:

“To people who are supporting LGBT, what would you feel if it is your child that is gay?”

Ten years ago, I thought it would be fine. Of course. It would be okay to have a gay child. But now I start to question my answer. Do I really want to have a gay child in Indonesia — where they would be persecuted by being themselves? Would I have the heart to let them be bullied by these bigots? If I have a gay child, my problem would not be the fact that they are gay, but the fact that they will have a difficult life in Indonesia.

But what would I feel?

I would feel the same. I would love them all the same. I would support them, and help them to find their true happiness. I would do what I think a parent should do for their children, after making them suffer enough by being born to this world.

I shouldn’t think differently.

Wait… wait… What’s that? Oh! I can hear some of you say: “You are not a parent, and you don’t want to have children anyway… you wouldn’t know how it feels to have a gay child.”

Of course. Well then…

My question is, what would THEY (these idiots) do if they have gay children?

Persecute them? Beat them up until they “repent”? Disown them? Lock them up in their room to straighten them up? Or like my parents — bring them to a psychiatrist who drug them with zoloft to “cure” their gayness?

Don’t you think it sounds like an abuse? Maybe… maybe you’re the one who shouldn’t have a child, just in case you might abuse them in the future…

I thought we were past this now, and I cannot believe that today, in 2016 I have to write about LGBT again. *deep sigh* *find a happy place*

Right!

I tried to find articles about LGBT I have written in the past. I couldn’t find them. Do you know why? Probably, I have never written about LGBT before. And do you know why? Maybe, in the past people were not such an asshole like people in Indonesia today. Maybe in the past, despite of their opinion about us, they would just leave us alone. Or maybe in the past, people were nicer without so called religions.

from upi.com

I don’t know. All I know is that now media tried to picture us as the bad guy of the universe. Not the people who bombed buildings, not terrorists who ran around shooting police officers, not the group of people who destroy buildings and businesses in the name of their oh-so-mighty-god. Oh no… not the religious leaders who molested their apprentices/students-whatever, not the wife beating abusive father drunken thug who litters on the street. No. The enemy is us… What a sick, twisted mind, that could produce such an ignorant conclusion – thinking that LGBT is a problem?

Or maybe they just don’t think? You know… thinking is a sign of intelligence. Considering Indonesian’s average IQ is only 87 — and there are ten of thousands of us with IQ more than 100 (with some people with IQ more than 130 in Mensa Indonesia), there must be millions of people with IQ lower than 80. It is borderline intellectual functioning. Isn’t it? No wonder they are just so dense… no wonder they failed to contemplate this:

Translated from Bahasa Indonesia: “if a GAY sexually abuses someone, people blame their GAY-ness. Why is it that if a STRAIGHT does the same, it is the individual that gets the blame? (Why don’t you blame their STRAIGHT-ness – as the reason why they sexually abuse people?)

It is 2016. It’s been 10 years since I got acquainted with LGBT communities — from si Onyed, obviously. Superbyq is about to have it’s 6th anniversary. It’s been more than 4 years since I left Indonesia, and almost 2 years of being married. And Indonesia… is going backwards, instead of catching up with other civilised countries. What the F is going on?

If several days ago, Mr. Fix-It and I had the “what if” idea, and thinking of coming back to Indonesia and live there. Now, I don’t think that is the case. I don’t want to live in Indonesia. I don’t think I could live among these people. I don’t think I could survive living among these idea. I don’t think, I could give up my freedom of being me, and going back to where I have to deny my own identity.

I have been thinking about posting this article few weeks ago, but I thought it would be a brilliant idea to post it on the celebration of Kartini Day.

It has been awhile since I posted anything about Kartini or anything related to Kartini Day as it coincided with Chika’s and also Superbyq’s birthday. But anyway…*moving swiftly on* marriage. Yes…

Growing up, I did not have many female friends. I did not have enough social skill to put up with their gossips and whines, and their constant reminder that every teenage girls need make up and diet. It was not easy sometimes, but then I began to have some female friends. Of course, it was never easy to have female friends, I still do not have the extra patience to the gossips and whines, and their constant reminder that every adult women need marriage and children. But I got better at ignoring these remarks.

Up until few weeks ago, when two of my female friends, who seemed to be coming from two different planets, talked about one same thing. Marriage.

One of them, was my childhood friends. It was one rare occasion that I maintained friendship for so long. Just call her Minnie Mouse, not because of her having a squeaky voice, and definitely not because she looks like a rat, but because of her disney crush to Mickey Mouse. Minnie Mouse, was about to get engaged when she told me that she finally broke up with her boyfriend. Well, he was a tw*t, so I did not feel sorry that she broke up with him. I felt sorry because she was sad and broken hearted as she did not want to break up with the dickhead.

She has been in the quest, of finding a husband, because she believes her clock is ticking and she wanted to have a family, and children. She is a typical traditional Asian woman, whose — despite her bright future in her career, her financial stability, her high profile family background, and also her promising degree in engineering– sole lifetime objective is to get married and breed. She has told me again and again that she is not getting younger, and all of our friends have already had kids (she forgot about me), and some of them has even had their third. And she wants it.

traditional family ideal

Too bad she ended up with wrong guys every time.

While the other friend, is someone coming from a closer planet than mine. I have known her for few years, never actually met her in person. She is a blogger too, and if she read this she will know that I am talking about her (or so I hope). Like me, she left Indonesia for study — but while I went north, my friend went down south. Let’s call her the Aussie Badass Chick.

Yes, she might be a couple of years younger than I am, and she kind of reminded me of what I wanted to be when I was her age. Independent, tough, badass. And she posted about marriage too, but from a completely different point of view: she said she does not want to get married. And I believe her.

This is the thing.

I did not want to get married either. I never thought that marriage institution is as important as what is perceived by many people. It is probably promoted in the first place as a population control, and helped with the gene pool. But when people are more educated like now, it is not more than tradition. If you just want to live with the person that you love for the rest of your life, just do it… you can live together in a house, sign the house certificate together if you want to protect yourself from being screwed around, and so on and so forth.

Well, logically speaking, there are some benefits of being married; and they are totally unromantic. First one is social standings. Especially in Asian family, being married means you are given so much more trust as a person, and finally considered as an adult by your parents. You are no longer the child — the lower rank member of the family, but you are the queen of your own sovereign. Your parents would be seen as successful for being able to marry you off, not only congratulated for being able to get rid of you. Your opinion would started to be considered in the family meetings, and you suddenly have the rights, and even encouraged to be a bitch.

The next one is the more important one for me: the legal status. Not for your children, but for you. It does not only mean that you can sue the shit of them if they are cheating on you. It is not only about the financial security either. It is about how the law in the country see you as a family. If one of you are in the hospital, they cannot visit, or take decision for you if they are not legally registered as your family/partner. If you adopt children together, only one of you can be their parent, because you are not legally a family, and a child cannot legally registered to two guardian family (and if you split up, one of you will definitely lose the custody).

George Takei (Sulu) and Brad Altman wedding… After 20+ years in relationship

And this is why the LGBT group wants the gay marriage to be legalised — just to answer people who insisted that if gay people wants to live together they could just… do.

And the third one… is freedom.

Majority of people would not see marriage as freedom. Instead, they believe that being married means you are being chained to a rigid institution and shit. I agree with them too, but I must point out the other side that they failed to see.

Women from eastern culture are tied down to her parents (her parents’ house, her parents’ family, etc.) until they are married, and have her own family. For some people, marriage is a way out from their parents’ house. Like Kartini (now you see why I chose this topic to be posted today, yes?) who agreed to marry a man who was way older than she was, just so that she could get out from her father — who denied her education because she was a girl. And use her new social standing as a married woman to do what she wanted to do — build friendships with foreign correspondence (hence her letters were made as a book), and got educated.

If anyone ask me if they have to get married, my answer is “definitely not”. No one can tell you to or not to marry anyone, if you want or do not want. The pressure, the thought of you are getting into the age you would no longer marriageable, would make you jump to the first person come to you, which lead you to the date wrong person… again and again. Have you not learn anything from How I Met Your Mother?

If anyone asked me if they need to get married, I would ask them why. Why do you want to get married? Do you think you cannot have sex if you are not married? Well, you can. If you feel guilty, ask forgiveness. If god is so forgiving he would absolve whatever sin you did or will do in the future.

If you think you cannot have children without being married, you are wrong. In fact you can have children any time you want: pick one from the foster houses.

Basically, the traditional justification of marriage is not applicable for me. But, if you want the benefits of marriage I just mentioned above, go for it. It came with responsibilities too: means they can sue the shit out of you if you cheated, means you might have to face the custody battle if you split up, means you would no longer receive red envelopes full of money from your parents during the Chinese New Year *broken inside*.

Cumberbatch portrayed a celebrated British mathematician Alan Turing, who in his way of inventing a computer also helped the allies to cracked the enigma code.

I love Benedict Cumberbatch. I believe he is not only extremely good looking, and incredibly posh, he also has a voice that can make me blush and gush (come on, say “Flibbertigibbet” again). But those are not the reasons why he’s a good actor. I believe that he is really into a character, that he becomes “it”.

Unfortunately, the same reason that makes him great, has also become his downfall. In this imitation game, all I could think of is Sherlock Holmes, but in a different era, and with different hairstyle. I can’t overlook the similarity between the fictional character, and the portrayal of a real person. Was he to “Sherlock” to be Alan Turing? Or Alan Turing is actually shared a similar personality with Sherlock?

Apart from that one little thing that bugged me, I really enjoyed watching this film. I am not particularly happy with the plot time lining, I think it could end up confusing for some audience. But it was wonderfully written, it delivered not only the story, but also the message it was trying to send.

I like Kiera Knightley in this film. She is not one of my favourite actresses of all time. The last film that I think she was good at was when she was kicking balls in Bend it Like Beckham. But in this film she looks grown up, not only as a character but also as an actress. There’s a maturity in her solid performance in this film, which made her acting believable.

This is the kind of film I would like to watch with my family. This is the kind of film I want my children (if I had any) to watch. Not only it has a historical content in it, it also delivers a strong moral message for an issue that should be introduced to children since they’re young. All, without reducing the entertainment value of this film. I would be more than happy to rate this film 10 out of 10 if it’s not because of the timeline and Sherlock thingy, so I should settle this down to 8,5 out of 10.

Few weeks ago, my husband and I finally managed to watch “The Imitation Game”. It is a story about one of the most celebrated mathematician in the UK, Alan Turing. He was one scientist whose work has probably saved the Allies’s arses from being whipped by the NAZI during World War II, the machine that would be the embryo of the modern computer we use today.

And he was treated like shit because he was gay.

Just two years ago, Queen Elizabeth II decided to give Alan Turing the posthumous royal pardon, for his conviction of gross indecency in 1950s. Alan Turing himself decided to end his own life, after being made to take female hormone to “fix” his homosexual behaviour.

For modern, knowledgeable, educated, and literate people, what has happened to Alan Turin is horrible. As civilised people, we would think that it is unthinkable to make someone do something that they don’t want, to deny their nature, and hormonally self castrating themselves to avoid prison time. It is unthinkable to treat someone who has done so much for human civilisation like that. And it is still unthinkable to know that Alan Turing is only one of so many.

Stephen Fry, and Benedict Cumberbatch, are two of so many people who think that this is an important matter to address. Not only that they have shared something in common with Alan Turing, but also that they believe that Alan Turing, and more than 40 thousands other people who was convicted for the same reason as his should be pardoned as well.

Stephen Fry, who just got married to his 30 year younger husband, went to the same university Alan Turing went — University of Cambridge. He’s one of my favourite celebrities in the world. Very intelligent, incredibly funny, and remarkably talented as a writer too, he’s probably one of the most amazing tv personality I have ever seen. Man, he went to Queen’s College, University of Cambridge… on scholarship, and made an incredible show in University Challenge. He’s a good friend of your well-loved Hugh Laurie too, you know?

While Benedict Cumberbatch, who ended up portraying Alan Turing in The Imitation Game, went to University of Manchester where Alan Turing worked as a lecturer. You might know him better on his appearance on BBC television show as Sherlock Holmes. Or if you’re watching Miss Marple too you might caught him in one of the episodes as Mr. Fitzpatrick. Incredibly handsome, with voice that could make me blush and gush, Mr. Cumberbatch had a private education (which means good education too).

These two incredible celebrities have been promoting a petition asking pardon for all other men who got convicted like Alan Turing. If you would like to join and sign the petition like them, this is the link:

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, you said, squealing while fantasising the younger version of this handsome boyish looking man. I think I better put the disclaimer in the beginning of my review, because if you are expecting a romantic comedy or any kind of vanilla drama, this is not the kind of Joseph Gordon-Levitt you would like to see. This would shatter all your fantasy of the perfect Joseph Gordon-Levitt you might have had in your mind.

Mysterious skin is a film made from a novel of the same title by Scott Heim in 1996. It is a dark drama about the life of two adolescent boys: Brian and Neil. Brian grew up as a very quiet boy who believes that he was one of the alien abduction victim when he was young, and Neil who grew up being a gay prostitute. Their life entangled in the past in the little town where the setting of the story was taken.

It would take a lot to make me feel that a film is disturbing, and I was a little bit disturbed in a way that I don’t know. I would have to put a very big disclaimer in the beginning, that this is not for everybody. As much as I think that this film is really good, some people would find this film as too much too handle.

This is definitely not a family drama. It has a lot of explicit sexual content, strong word and violence. Not for kids, not for the faint hearted too.